1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an agent system, and more particularly to a conditional reply processing method and a conditional reply giving agent system device, which allow a message to be exchanged as a conditional reply if a reply can be made by imposing a condition despite the absence of a direct reply, and to a program storage medium for this implementation.
2. Description of the Related Art
The WWW (World Wide Web) has been successful, and the Internet has rapidly become popular. As a result, huge amounts of information have begun to be placed on the Internet. In addition to the Internet, huge amounts of information in electronic forms are stored in on-line databases, etc.
However, users have difficulty to find their desired information. As is often the case, the users must view many screens one by one in order to find out the information (page) that they actually desire, for example, with a method for tracing respective links or with a method for searching a list including a large amount of hit data obtained with a keyword search. As described above, the users cannot effectively use existing information. Therefore, a considerable load is imposed on busy users in terms of time and effort.
Especially, because there is no direct reply to an inquiry request made between agents due to the insufficiency of conditions although there is actually a useful reply, it is sometimes impossible to obtain a reply to the inquiry. Therefore, an agent processing technique with flexibility is required, for example, for a search of data distributed and located in a network.
An agent system is a technique for allowing pieces of software to be linked by using software as an autonomous module, which is a software agent speaking a common language (such as ACL (Agent Communication Language). This system makes pieces of software communicate with each other as software agents, and links them, so that the information useful to a user can be collected without user""s tracing links so as to retrieve desired information.
This agent system, however, fundamentally has the scheme that one agent gives a direct reply to an inquiry message transmitted by another agent.
Accordingly, there is no conventional scheme for coping with the case in which an agent on a reply side can give a reply by imposing some conditions although it has no direct reply.
Assume that a service to retrieve a product name, a production place and a unit price of an apple is requested to a database agent having a database of agricultural products. In this case, the unit price may sometimes vary depending on a deal amount and a producer, even if the name and production place of the apple are identical. With the conventional search, all of the different unit prices included in the database are simply searched and retrieved. In such a case, a meaningful reply cannot be obtained if also conditions such as a deal amount, etc. are searched, and the database agent cannot give an effective reply.
Additionally, if a reply cannot be determined due to the insufficiency of conditions, some database agents give a reply xe2x80x9cno corresponding dataxe2x80x9d. Also in such a case, users cannot obtain their desired information.
Especially, in a system where one inquiry made by a user agent is distributed to a plurality of database agents via an intermediary agent, the conditions included in the inquiry, on which each of the plurality of database agents gives a reply to the inquiry, may sometimes differ depending on the database agents. How to cope with this phenomenon by the user agent or the intermediary agent in such a case is a problem.
Conventionally, there is the disadvantage that information is not notified to an opposing agent although the information about the inquiry exists in an agent on a reply side, as described above.
An object of the present invention is to provide a conditional reply processing method, a conditional reply giving agent system device, and a storage medium storing a conditional reply processing program, which allow a more refined information link between agents by transmitting a conditional reply and enabling the receiving side to perform processing if a reply can be given with the imposition of a condition.
A conditional reply giving agent system device according to the present invention comprises a replying unit, a presenting unit, a transmitting unit, a data storing unit, a conditional expression inputting unit, a searching unit, a determining unit, and an answering unit.
The first aspect of the present invention is that the replying unit obtains and gives a conditional reply in addition to a direct reply to a request made by a certain agent device. The presenting unit presents the contents of the reply including the conditional reply in the agent device which receives the reply.
The second aspect of the present invention is that a direct reply and a conditional reply to a request made to another agent device are integrated and given. The presenting unit presents the contents of the reply including the conditional reply to a user via a user interface unit when receiving the reply including the conditional reply to the request issued by another agent device.
The third aspect of the present invention is that the transmitting unit obtains a conditional reply and transmits the conditional reply message to a first agent device if it transmits the request message from a first agent device to a second agent device, and cannot obtain the unique reply from the second agent device due to the insufficiency of conditions for replying to the request. The presenting unit presents the contents of the reply including the conditional reply to a user via a user interface unit when receiving the conditional reply message from the third agent device.
The fourth aspect of the present invention is that the data storing unit stores a plurality of pieces of data to be searched. The conditional expression inputting unit inputs a conditional expression for retrieving desired data. The searching unit searches the data storing unit by using the conditional expression input by the conditional expression inputting unit. The determining unit determines whether or not the conditions of the conditional expression input by the conditional expression inputting unit are insufficient. The answering unit answers that the conditions are insufficient if they are determined to be insufficient.